Let's create a better Restaurant Rating System

[mantee]

I think you should just rate,we all can figure out that a place is high in food, not in decor, like in Zagat's. The food is the most important part for any dinner, service is a close second. Many people want that special hide away, the one that they are too lazy to find, they also want the place to be cheap. Just rate, people will be able to decide what they want for the food, and the mood that "they want' for that evening.

[Pan]

The way I'd implement it is to pre-qualify all "inspectors." There would be a baseline dining-experience requirement and a certain level of knowledge and discernment would have to be displayed. Were we to do it on eGullet, I'd probably just say 100 posts plus having eaten at 20 restaurants on the current ranking list qualifies you to participate. Those who are approved as "inspectors" would get access to the rankings and would add their evaluations each time they eat at a given restaurant. These evaluations would be converted to numbers that would serve to push a restaurant higher or lower in its category, or leave its ranking unchanged. Categories would vary in size based on the overall size and quality of the pool of potentially relevant restaurants to each category. The initial list would have to be created by an executive committee of experienced diners. Inspectors' evaluations would be publicized to all the other inspectors in a discussion forum so that some degree of consensus could be reached -- even where there is disagreement, this would at least work to minimize the impact of subjectivity. The aggregate Top 10 lists would have to be created by the executive committee.

I'm reading through the posts on this thread again from the beginning. I'm wondering whether we should revisit this idea.